October 05, 2010

Google TV preview in the US

Interesting, and probably more than a little similar to Virgin Media's forthcoming TiVo interface. I'm a little sceptical that it will take off - the Apple TV service has been around for years and has had little success in Europe or the US for that matter. If it has no PVR capability or broadcast integration it won't be a Sky/Virgin Media challenger, especially if the content is premium priced, only from the services of Netflix/Amazon/Android Market and heavily dependent on fast broadband connectivity.

3 comments:

This is actually very different to Apple TV. Apple's option is a very simple streaming box designed to stream your iTunes library, or to rent movies from the iTunes store. That's it. Nothing else.

Google TV is all about searching the web for the content you want, so it will pull from any streaming video site to provide you with as many options as possible. Obviously it's vastly more useful in the US than here, as US customers get access to Comedy Central, Hulu, Netflix, ABC, etc etc. Here it would I assume only be able to pull from iPlayer, 4 On Demand, and a couple of others.

Google TV is also being integrated into Sony HDTVs, and into PVRs from Dish Network (US only). Plus.. and this is the big one - it will run any Android app.

It sounds pretty powerful provided the content is there (which it by and large is in the US, and certainly isn't in the UK), and the idea of full Android apps on the TV could be revolutionary. Apple's offering by comparison is an incredibly simplistic and limited streaming box - I know as I've had one for years.